BATON ROUGE — The Southeastern Conference released its first preseason All-SEC team for soccer on Thursday, and LSU sophomore Chelsea Potts earned distinction as one of the SEC’s premier defenders in a vote of the league’s 12 head coaches.
Potts, a Second-Team All-SEC selection and member of the SEC All-Freshman Team a year ago, joins 13 other standouts from around the SEC who have earned preseason first-team recognition.
The coaches preseason All-SEC team is made up of at least 11 standouts from around the conference as each of the league’s 12 head coaches voted for three forwards, three midfielders, three defenders, one goalkeeper and on at-large candidate. No ties in the voting were broken.
The seventh-ranked and defending SEC champion Florida Gators led all schools with four selections, including forward Stacy Bishop, midfielder Ameera Abdullah and defenders Melanie Booth and Lauren Hyde. Bishop and Carrie Patterson of Georgia were the only unanimous selections to this year’s preseason squad.
Potts, a native of Aurora, Ill., showed why she was one of the nation’s most highly recruited defensive specialists as a high school senior as she was named a Freshman All-American and All-Central Region selection by Soccer Buzz Magazine in 2006.
She is one of 11 starters and 16 letterwinners who return to a squad that is looking to take the next step under third-year head coach Brian Lee and compete for its first SEC title and first trip to the NCAA Tournament in program history. The Tigers open the season on Aug. 31 as they welcome Southern Miss to the LSU Soccer Complex in a match scheduled for 7 p.m.
2007 SEC Soccer Coaches Preseason All-SEC Team
F, Stacy Bishop, Sr., Florida#
F, Carrie Patterson, So., Georgia#
F, Emily Redberg, Sr., Tennessee
F, Kylee Rossi, Jr., Tennessee
M, Ameera Abdullah, Jr., Florida
M, Chrissy Strini, Sr., Ole Miss
M, Ashley Kirk, Sr., South Carolina
M, Katie Schulz, Jr., Vanderbilt
D, Melanie Booth, Sr., Florida
D, Lauren Hyde, So., Florida
D, Chelsea Potts, So., LSU
D, Blakely Mattern, So., South Carolina
GK, Allison Whitworth, Jr., Auburn
GK, Jaimel Johnson, Jr., Tennessee
# – Unanimous Selection; Ties were not broken